It peaked at 4.05% in March. The last 2 months it went just below 4% as the Unknown category increased. For June the reverse happened, so 4.04% seems to be the real current share of Linux on Desktop as desktop clients were read properly/werent spoofed.
This is probably a good place to ask, but when ditching windows for Linux, what’s a good distro to go with? Preferably one that has a good WINE interface.
I’ve seen a lot of people move to Mint or Pop_OS or Kubuntu. They’re Debian based so updates are pretty stable.
I personally ended up with EndeavourOS using the KDE desktop environment. I have a steam deck, so this felt very similar to me. This is Arch based so sometimes updates break things, but I’ve had more success here.
Also remember that no distro is problem-free, but neither was Windows. The longer you commit, the easier it gets.
EDIT: If you’re hesitant to fully commit at first, I also recommend dual booting with Windows. Over time you’ll use it less and less until one day you feel like reclaiming the disk space.
If you’re hesitant to fully commit at first, I also recommend dual booting with Windows. Over time you’ll use it less and less until one day you feel like reclaiming the disk space.
I have a 10 year old laptop that I had to get rid of the hard drive for and am installing an nand drive and want to use to re-familiarize myself with Linux on it. Especially since my main desktops are too old to upgrade to Windows 11(not that I’d want to anyway) and I figure going Linux now will save me from scrambling when the pooch gets thoroughly screwed after Win 10 updates end.
I’d personally recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition. After distro hopping for a bit, it has personally been the best one for working right out of the box, both for my games and for my peripherals.
I like the UI, it’s about at my tech level/needs. I have little to no complaints about it, which is as good as it gets.
This is one of many comments I’ve seen on several posts that have recommended Mint. I’m currently playing around with Ubuntu, just because it’s the one I’m most familiar with from back in the day, but since the drive I’m using is temporary I might do a wipe and then load Mint and see how that operates.
Preferably one that has a good WINE interface.
IIRC, Zorin OS handles that the best. Furthermore, it’s actually a distro that targets beginners (like e.g. Linux Mint does). So, overall, it’s a great pick.
Of course, don’t just expect that all your Windows software just works on Linux with WINE. Instead, search if they’re somehow available on Linux and/or work through WINE. If that’s not the case, then ensure that an alternative is available that you’re willing to use instead.
Finally, ensure that the distro you choose, actually works great with your hardware.
Well this is the funny thing that has occurred in the last 24 hours. I have been playing about with basic Ubuntu and I installed Wine on it. But when I tried to come up with a Microsoft dependent application to test it out on I came to the realization that there are no applications that I use that are exclusive to Microsoft. Nearly everything I use is either web-based or has a Linux port.
Hell, even MS Office is web based nowadays. I think Windows truly has become obsolete, or at least out moded. That is for casual desktop users such as myself. There may be enterprise programs out there that still rely on Windows architecture.
Edit: P.S. the Ubuntu was really just a test for the machine I will be working with. I think I’m likely gonna stick Mint on it and give that a try after a new hard drive arrives for it later this week.
OK, who did you guys bully over basic tech support questions?
uMatrix prevents me from loading this statcounter website. :-( Can’t lookup how they measure things. In the comments people assume the stats would be counted by just looking up the user agent, which is a naive approach. I don’t think agencies dedicated to stats are doing it this simple. They have way more possibilities to track and to look what browser you are using. The stats are more accurate than you probably think. They do not need to know the exact version of browser you are using, just which type and maybe what operating system you are on.
If a script for Windows does not work on Linux and fails, then they know you are not on Windows in example.
Why are you still using uMatrix in 2024? Wasn’t it discontinued 3 years ago or smth?
It’s still useful with all its functionality. Even if it does not get updates, it still blocks most stuff and I can enable or block stuff too. Plus the blocklists it uses are still updated, as they act independently from the main addon. There is no better alternative in my opinion. I use uMatrix + uBlock Origin.
Man i hope linux becomes more popular
I see multiple posts on reddit everyday asking for advice for migrating to linux. I think linux userbase is increasing a lot since Window’s questionable recall announcement.
And the valve steamdeck But some people install windows on it which defeats it’s linux purpose
I feel like both “people who install windows on the steam deck” and “people asking for advice for migrating to linux on reddit” are just vocal minorities which you encounter on the internet but don’t really influence the Statcounter’s results in a meaningful way. Generally (from my view) it’s the kids who got a steamdeck for xmass and the coders who use ubuntu for work influencing the numbers.
Nevertheless, Valve’s work with proton has pretty much crushed the argument that Windows is needed for games. That use to be a major sticking point, preventing people from leaving Windows - but now not so much.
If you play games that requires anti cheat It’s gonna be harder to switch
Also vr support
Halflife alyx?
There’s some other good ones too, but fair point
Almost all anti-cheats work on linux or offer linux integration or builds. It’s the scummy unethical publishers who run the typical games that uses anti-cheat who refuse to pay engineers to make the minimum effort to support linux. Because it would undermine some of their bullshit claims used to manipulate their players. Fortunately for some people like myself, the typical game that requires anti-cheat is not a game they would want to play anyways.
A lot of mods are also windows locked too.
Nexus mods is working on a Linux client which is really exciting! Also Steam Workshop works on Linux. This covers a ton of use cases.
Not saying everything is 100% perfection, but it’s easier than ever to switch, and only getting easier.
I imagine “Windows locked mods” would probably also benefit from just disconnecting the internet and keeping it set up just the way one likes it, since MS is gonna drop Win10 soon.
That’s the case with WMR VR headsets. Sadly don’t see those getting cracked to work on Linux any time soon. :(
I just saw the news for Nexus mods like 20 minutes after I posted that. Hopefully it can be integrated well soon.
But yes, over time, things will continue to get better. Even Nvidia finally started working on open drivers for their GPUs.
Sorry, I stopped playing factorio on my work Linux computer. I will play next month to get us back up.
Don’t worry, I’ve been playing plenty of Linux factorio for the last few weeks to make up for it.
Thank you for your service
In all seriousness, I think government bodies switching to Linux (UK’s, China’s, some Indian states’) attributes the most to this.
No I think it’s the Steam Deck. It’s like half of all actively used Linux machines.
In Steam maybe. But this is StatCounter which is website visits. I doubt many Deck users are browsing the web.
For some reason I think a lot of them (probably even more than half) have tried browsing the web or at least using the desktop mode at least once.
Half of the Linux machines on Steam, not the entirety of Linux.
Yes sorry you’re right
A very important distinction
Source? Last I checked, the Steam Deck was very much in the minority even when narrowed down to just desktop Linux.
Source is the Steam hardware survey set to show Linux data only. He forgot to mention the statement is only true for Steam Gamers, not for all of Linux desktops outside of Steam.
I believe the Steam Deck would be a significant portion of the Linux desktops, but Steam’s survey might be a biased source, still
What does significant portion mean to you?
I confused it with Steam statistics sorry
But that’s not really a Desktop is it? If we’d count mobile device we’d also have to include Android and then the situation would look completely different.
It is. I use it as such regularly. Keyboard+mouse+screen = browsing firefox as usual. Works quite well. Libreoffice, okular, signal desktop… I’ve used worse computers in recent years, steamdeck desktop experience is better than many 4 to 5 year old cheap laptops with win10 or win11.
Connect the Steam Deck to a compatible dock and you can quite easily use it as a desktop. At the end of the day, it’s still an x64 based PC that’s just handheld.
I’m not sure that’s really a good argument. I can connect an android smartphone to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and call it Desktop. It’s also just an arm64 or x64 based PC just handheld.
A Desktop PC IMHO is a device that is used for everyday “office” work and neither android smartphones nor steamdecks are that - but laptops for example are (IMHO)
Steam deck has a full fat kde desktop on the stock os
I could install a full fat kde on the entertainment system of a car - still wouldn’t call it a desktop PC.
You can plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor
Steam Deck is a desktop. It is exactly the same PC hardware and software you are using on your desktop PC. It runs the same games and is software compatible. Steam Deck is a desktop PC.
Android has a different hardware (not x86 compatible), is focused on phones, its eco system of software is not compatible with PC and in reverse does not run your PC software. Android based smartphones are not a PC.
So your definition for “desktop” is if it’s an x86 compatible architecture? Seems pretty random to me. Btw, there are x86 android device. IMO a desktop is something on the top of a desk to do typical “office work”. PCs, Macs, Laptops, etc. but calling a SteamDeck game console “Desktop” is pretty dishonest I think.
PC in the first place means x86 architecture. Desktop is the operating system, here a Linux desktop or Windows OS. Nothing random here. Steam Deck is a Desktop PC with form factor of a handheld. Just like any other Laptop is a Desktop PC in a notebook form factor. It runs, plays and uses the exact same hard and software as a Desktop PC. Calling Steam Deck PC not to be a Desktop is pretty dishonest. Also saying desktop PC must be on a desk for typical office work is random too.
Also this is all about stats. Don’t forget, this is not your opinion or my opinion. I am speaking from the stats perspective, as the Firefox browser (or any other browser) is just a Desktop PC from the perspective of the stats.
If you say I am pretty random and being dishonest, then first, you are discounting others opinions, secondly did not even understand the purpose of my reply. Maybe you should watch out your language next time before responding if you want further discussion. I hope my reply here made it crystal clear.
The names are pretty clear and are about form factor. Desktop is something on top of a desk. Laptop is something on top of your lap. Hand-held is something you hold in your hand.
The steam deck is a hand-held game console - doesn’t matter what OS is it uses. It’s true that most stat tracking sites count it as “desktop” but not because it’s a desktop computer but because the user agent looks similar to desktop user agents.
If I install Android on a tower PC it doesn’t randomly become a smartphone even though all browser trackers would register it as a smartphone.
And Valve using a “typical desktop OS” on their handheld console doesn’t magically turn it into a desktop PC.
The example with Android makes no sense as a argument in our discussion.
The steam deck is a hand-held game console - doesn’t matter what OS is it uses
Wrong. It does matter. Plus, it matters what software and what configuration it uses the moment it gets counted in the stats.
The discussion is not about what you try to tell. You can say what you want, it does not matter that the Steam Deck uses hardware that is PC and software that is a hybrid of Desktop and Gaming operating system. And when going to the web with a web browser, then the Steam Deck is in Desktop mode, and therefore seen as a Desktop PC. Not only act it like that, the functionality is a Desktop PC.
The Steam Deck has two modes if you forgot that, and we are talking about the Desktop PC mode. Which is what the stats are all about.
But how many use it for browsing, which I imagine this data is from?
We don’t include Android here. What I meant is that the Steam Deck does count in that statistics.
Oh that is a good point, why didn’t I think of that!
no, the statistics are based on browser agents, very few steam deck users browse the Internet on their devices. it’s also only half the Linux devices on steam, not of all Linux desktops
Even if that’s the case, it’s telling of Linux’ maturity.
Oh absolutely!
I’m fairly sure it’s deficiencies in StatCounter’s measurement that’s accounting for it. Statistical noise, basically.
It’s probably even higher than that. These stats are mostly based on website visits I believe. And many Linux users are also privacy-minded and might spoof their OS in the browser. I bet a large portion of the Unknown is actually Linux too.
And a portion of the “Windows” as well. Hiding in plain sight and all.
It’s hard to tell, as there are so many things that influence it. A huge factor is selection bias, as only a small number of website embed StatCounter, and that’s very likely to not be a representative sample. I’d bet that the influence of that is magnitudes larger than of user agent spoofing.
why do we negate chromeos we are 10% at least so there we really are
For starters doesn’t it only run apps from the Google play store?
and what kernel would you say it and android runs? relevant?
This is the format collision discussion that has no solution so far. A tablet that runs windows is counted as Windows. A laptop that runs android does not. Neither does an android cellphone. It all boils down to web browser user agent fuckery. This is why steam’s numbers are more reliable than other sources, they’re direct hardware surveys.
But the point is that a steam deck is not (but in a way it is basically just) a PC. There are tablets than run desktop interfaces and now there are laptops that can be used as tablet. Eventually the artificial mobile vs. PC/desktop/laptop schism will stop making sense.
I have had to do some work on my windows pc and I hate it. I have been away from desktop for a while now and changed to linux for personal one. At work it is all G suite, which does work to its credit, but the windows OS and microsoft cloud documents suck so much. The look and feel is clunky, so clunky. Constantly refreshing and just being shit.
Never forgive forcing outlook.
I work in email Marketing and Outlook is the worst client, especially desktop. Everything I make has to have accommodations for this shitty inbox
As a service outlook (microsoft mail) sucks, as a web service their page sucks andnisnpoorly laid out and optimised and the new desktop client is atrocious.
They made me change from hotmail outlook, created a hotmail folder for under the new outlook and now I dont get notification for that address on the outlook app. If something gets marked as spam that isnt, marking it not spam sends it to the outlook inbox regardless of intended destination. If I reply to a mail it prioritises outlook despite the mail being sent to hotmail. As a result I cant log into shared files that people gave access to one but not the other.
And as a user do I hate it too. It is too many times while I edit an email and click delete that is deletes the email instead… It seems if I click a word and get the spell window does the focus always change to the list of emails… And it also force a spell correction if I click space… I didn’t pick one of the options I just want to edit the word myself!!! And if I scrolldown to remove some parts of the email thread or just want to copy a part won’t it let me if I don’t click twice… and it jumps around…damn I hate it so much. Sorry that I replied to you with all these anger. But I really felt it when I saw yours and ops comment. I hope we one day will at least think it is an ok client to work with
1980s: Hey guise, computers are now cheap and small enough that you can run an entire system and all your programs on your own machine at home instead of having to dial in to the mainframe!
2010s: No, we’re putting it all back on the servers, you get a thin client.
No technical reason btw, just because “fuck you”.
From a macro economic perspective, (and im not advocating for a conspiracy, just aggregate business interest) they’re dropping energy usage so they can pay less on their electricity bills.
So actually a double fu. get less so they can pay less rent, to provide lesser service.
Because rent seeking is the only tech bubble left.
I am still hoping it will hit 10% market share within my life time. I remember when it was predicted to hit that in 2010, obviously it didn’t happen*. Of course for me personally, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2007 when I was finally able to use it as my main OS at home, I tried it before many times since 2003.
* not counting systems that use the Linux kernel but aren’t considered a traditional GNU+Linux desktop.
I am still hoping it will hit 10% market share within my life time.
Do we really want that?
We have it pretty good right now. I would actually say we’re living in a golden age of desktop Linux: there’s constant innovation, good support, you get to do pretty much everything you need, while flying under the radar.
Linux has won the majority of the industry (servers, mobile etc.) so it’s not like it has anything left to prove.
If it starts getting noticeable on the desktop I fear we’re just gonna get negative attention. Users who take and not contribute, because Windows had taught them to be entitled. Unwanted attention from Microsoft, who I bet are not going to be doing nice things once they start getting paranoid about it.
I really don’t think that large companies like Adobe will care about Linux even at 10% and even if they did, they are a super toxic company nowadays, the least we get to interact with them the better.
Do we really want that?
As long as competition and choice continues to be the mantra of the Linux desktop, then yes, I’d love to see more and more people using it.
We have it pretty good right now. I would actually say we’re living in a golden age of desktop Linux: there’s constant innovation, good support, you get to do pretty much everything you need, while flying under the radar.
Very true.
Unwanted attention from Microsoft, who I bet are not going to be doing nice things once they start getting paranoid about it.
I mean, Ballmer called Linux a cancer pretty early on, so that ship sailed a long time ago.
I really don’t think that large companies like Adobe will care about Linux
Once they start losing large sums of money due to people switching and finding viable alternatives, they certainly will care. Right now Adobe has one main thing going for them – apathy and muscle memory of the aging demographic of their users. That will eventually change.
the least we get to interact with them the better.
Absolutely. I used to be an Adobe fan, back when Kevin Lynch was a part of it, and I was a Flex developer. Then Jobs wrote his thing about Flash, and a year later, not a month after Jobs’s death, Adobe dumps Flex – and literally overnight my position changed from Flex to HTML5 and Java.
There are many games & software with no Linux support, not to mention AC blocked games. Increased marketshare could change a thing or two, at least.
not counting systems that use the Linux kernel but aren’t considered a traditional GNU+Linux desktop.
Does that mean you don’t count Alpine towards Linux market share? It mostly doesn’t use any GNU stuff.
You can also compile the kernel with LLVM instead of gcc, use musl instead of glibc, and use BSD coreutils instead of GNU coreutils.
Do they use the BSD userland instead? Interesting…
Perhaps the definition isn’t good enough or accurate. What would you call a system that perhaps uses Darwin kernel or Hurd plus GNU user land, or any combo of.
Do they use the BSD userland instead? Interesting…
I think Alpine uses Busybox, but it’s feasible for a Linux distro to use BSD coreutils. Not sure if any do that, though.
Fwiw, my blog’s statistics say Linux is around 10% and I know a lot of browsers identify themselves as running on Windows when they’re not, so I wonder how it’s measured.
I would wager thats your audiences bias showing up. If you did that measurement in lemmy users, you would get likely 90% Linux users.
lol no you wouldn’t. I’d be shocked if Lemmy users were greater than 20% Linux.
You can tell from the neofetch screenshots of their VMs showing weird configurations like 3 cores and 6 GB RAM with 15 minutes uptime.
Weird configs aren’t always a tell, my daily driver is a desktop with a tigerlake mobile engineering sample cpu
Are you implying that the host OS in those situations is not Linux?
What’s is the main topic of your blog?
Travel, nothing tech related
We should do a poll, who uses Linux?
Seems like you will get a biased sample here…
Why?
(Joking)
I think the venn diagram overlap of linux users, and users of adblockers or noscript users that block such tracking is quite large. Must impact the statistic significantly.
I use ad blocker but do not spoof user agent. If uBlpck does not block statcounter, I should be counted.
If only linux gaming and thermal became more and more robust, in few year I will switch too with pleasure. Adobe suite can still be a problem but not for me anymore at least.
Playing on Linux for a year now. I wouldn’t say it was flawless, but a lot has to do with me learning how to do it correctly. Like using steam and heroic game launcher, trying a different version of Proton or wine, and it’s beginning to be very easy now that I have the right recipe so to say.
Good to know, the main problem is that a good % of gamer doesn’t have time to a tryhard with different version of things, drivers… I have skill to setup a linux gaming machine but I don’t have time to do this. If Linux gaming becoming more and more straightforward (not as windows but similar, starting from gpu driver), more and more ppl could ditch at least windows second partition.
Windows 11: Add advertisement to the start menu, add remote Artificial intelligence to your daily live. Require new CPUs and motherboards / hardware, ignoring the market for old computers.
What will they do next?
- More advertisement.
- More features that require an always on internet connection?
- Forced restart for software updates
This is why I expect Linux share to slowly increase until the old computers die and you will not be allowed to choose to boot another operating system besides Windows on your Microsoft-Copilot+ PC that would be your only option.
Windows decline has nothing to do with any of the actual features.
It is declining because fewer people are buying PCs anymore. Every one is using a mobile device or tablet.
This is also the reason they are squeezing windows harder to make up for the down turn.
My brother, who want nothing to do with computers if he can, asked me to install Linux on his domestic laptop. It’s not an everyone is doing it yet, but there’s definitely something.
Forcing everyone to stay connected will make pirating it harder, and that will drive many, many people away.
But we’re talking about proportions of Desktop operating systems. People using the desktop less might decrease (or slow the increase) of total desktop usage; but there would need to be more reason that just that for it to impact Windows disproportionately.
This is clearly a statistic about PCs, otherwise the share wouldnt be ~73% windows. So the decline of the desktop PC doesnt really matter here
The people who are more likely to retain a PC and not just use a phone, are more likely to be tech literate power users.
This selects against casual windows users, and selects for hardcore Linux users
Next:
-
Must always be online
-
Cost is now $9.99 per month (free with commercial breaks. For now of course.)
-
Everything is stored online (60GB free, $5.99/month to up it to 199GB, $49/m for 400GB).
-
The thing is that most Windows users don’t care and will continue to use it. People like you and I know about the benefits of Linux, but sometimes we overestimate how much regular users care about the OS they’re using.
Forced restart for software updates
If anything, they’re moving in the opposite direction. Windows Server 2025 is going to support hotpatching, which means that system updates can be applied without needing to reboot. Not sure if the technology will come to consumer Windows though.
Require new CPUs and motherboards / hardware, ignoring the market for old computers.
How long do you expect legacy hardware to be supported for?
I dunno, longer than 6 years, which is about how long it took for Skylake to go from brand new to not being supported by the new version of Windows?
And I honestly can’t think of a time that’s even happened before when you could get 10 running on 10+ year old processors as long as they were powerful enough. And the difference between a Core 2 Duo and a Skylake i7 is vastly more than between the Skylake i7 and the current generation.
The issue is not that the hardware stops getting support, either… It’s that the hardware is expressly and needlessly being blocked long before it’s no longer useful. My old Skylake is now 9 years old and more than capable of running as a moderate power machine on current workloads, other than being forcibly blocked to encourage me to put it in a landfill so I can continue the consumer march for more stuff to feed the corpos.
It’s wasteful. And for the most part, all that’s needed is for the old drivers to be allowed to function. And to make things like TPM 2 be optional, especially considering I don’t think you’re even required to actually use it for Windows 11, just have it.
Interesting… I didn’t realise Skylake isn’t supported. I agree with your comment. I thought people were talking about much older equipment.
TPM 2 has been around since 2015ish and I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows starts relying on it more heavily. A lot of businesses have already required employees to use computers with TPM 2.0 for a long time, and enterprise use is a big focus for Microsoft.
I have some Sandy Bridge systems here running strong as Linux desktops for light work. You know, these 4-core 3,3GHz processors from - hmm - 2014?
I switched to librewolf so I will now show up as windows
After seeing Garuda Linux set my user agent to Windows, I set my Windows install user agent to Linux.
Seeing Twitch.tv login break after changing my user agent was hilarious
What did it say? Why does it break?
I unspoofed Librewolf back to Firefox + Linux. That way I’m not contributing to Chrome and Windows market share and perceived dominance. Plus the more people don’t spoof, the less of a need there will be to actually spoof at all as the Linux market share increases.
The problem is that websites sometimes change there behavior.
Yeah me too, safety in numbers. Maybe if Linux desktop gets bigger than Windows they’ll swap it around 👨💻
Same, there must be a percent or so of Windows actually being Linux instead.
I wonder what’s on the ‘unknown’
likely content blockers preventing the trackers from working properly and invalid user agents. So i would expect about the same ratio of usage on there as well. Maybe very slightly more Linux since maybe the users are more likely to tinker with their browser configs and install content blockers, but even there Id say its an extremely slim minority of even linux users who do that
StatCounter also sometimes miscounts when new versions of windows or macos come out. At one point (I think at windows 11 release) there was a huge dip in windows 10 users and a huge gain in “unknown” and it was quickly fixed.
Bare Metal, they are injection Ethernet cable directly into their bloodstream.
In essence Netrunner then?
That 6% attributed to “unknown” is the one true OS, the only one ordained by the Almighty… Temple OS!
True Temple OS has no networking
Based security approach
It does have networking if you truly believe!
Heretical, you will burn in hell
Amiga.
Statcounter numbers are to be taker with boulders of salt. you can look at many metrics and especially when you filter by country. you will see a lot of erratic unexplained changes. jumping down and then a few months lather up by sometimes up to double digits.
